All disclaimers are in place. Refer to the Prologue section for details.
PART ELEVEN: PITYThe young blond boy was insufferable. Despite her year-ahead status, they were the same age, and Draco let her know on a regular basis that he thought her to be considerably beneath him. Actually, there were quite a few Seventh Year students he viewed as beneath him. "Yes, fortunately he feels I shouldn't have to wait until Hogsmeade weekends to get away." He was admiring his manicured fingernails. "What's your excuse?"
"Wouldn't you like to know." She resisted feeding his disposition with the force of a south-side magnet, for his ego had skipped merrily northward.
"I would, in fact. I'd also like to know whether or not anyone's poked a hole up your arse lately to let some of that sourness out. You're as uptight as that buck-toothed cave dweller Granger."
"I can think of something else that needs holes poked in it. Your over-inflated, superiority-complex-driven ego, perhaps?"
Draco's lips pursed in reaction. "You're just saying that to cover the fact that you want me."
Halo cringed. "I am not going to dignify that with a response."
The younger Malfoy licked his lips suggestively.
The look of disgust on her face was clear as glass. "To think that a person would ever come close to touching you with anything less than a cattle prod just sickens me." Her scathing tongue lashed him like a bullwhip. "I am through dealing with you, Draco Malfoy. Get your carcass out of my way."
Malfoy looked quite ready to retrieve his head from the ground at the detrimental whiplash she had hammered him with.
He was quick to recover… sometimes. But she was quicker. "Admit it. You'd give yourself over to me in a second if I ordered you to," he provoked her.
Draco moved closer to her, his inappropriate objective clear. Halo was about to launch another attack on his lesser species when she remembered something she once heard in elementary school: It takes forty-two muscles to frown, but it only takes four muscles to extend your arm and smack the idiot upside his head. With a forcefully distinctive and irritated "Aaargh!" she was about to do just that, when Draco Malfoy was launched backward a few feet and landed flat on his back with a thud. Halo hadn't touched him. Nor had she touched her wand.
It took several seconds for either of them to fully register the event.
"Draco! Where are you, ignorant boy? We're leaving!" she heard the elder Malfoy call from a short distance.
The blond boy pushed himself up off the ground, dusting off his school robes. "We'll finish this…" Draco sneered wickedly and darted off through the crowd, presumably to follow his father like a duckling. Gods, that boy was intolerable, but at least he was adherent to his father's command. She wasn't looking forward to their next encounter.
Halo flopped on a bench just outside the Apothecary door thinking to her self, What did I just do? when she felt a hand come to rest on her shoulder. She jerked aside, looking up at the owner of the limb that had touched her. It belonged to a tall, black-clad wizard with piercing eyes.
"Well done, Halo."
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"But – I – don't – know – how – I – did – it!" She repeated for the umpteenth time, perched on a stool in her soundproof room. Snape had insisted they return to Hogwarts to test her skill after the scene in Diagon Alley. The newly acquired newts' eyes and shredded toadstools had long been forgotten and they sat, congealing, in a shopping bag on Snape's desk.
"Please, just try," he tried to persuade her, sighing deeply to suppress his building frustration.
"I'm tired. I want to go to bed."
"It's three o'clock in the afternoon!"
"I can't help it if I'm tired."
Snape closed his eyes for a second. Mind your temper, Severus, he told himself. "Just one try… then I'll give you whatever you want."
Halo raised an eyebrow at this. "Why is this so important to you?" she queried.
"Because… I have to see if you can reproduce the event… and also control it."
"But why?" If I'll be dead in a few months, why is this so important? You want me to fight the Death Eaters for you, right? I knew it… I knew that was what this was about." She folded her arms across her chest and refused to look at him.
"If that is what you wish to believe, then I won't stop you." He moved to stand directly in front of her, in just the manner he had seen young Malfoy approach her. "Use me if you wish. Gods know you hate me just as much as that infernal boy."
Halo's dark metallic eyes fixed on his form, but she wouldn't look him straight in the eye. "Is that what you think?" She shook her head slowly in disagreement. "I've hated you for quite long enough. I'm through. If anything, I'm sorry for you… sorry that you have no feelings. Even to hate me back would be too much for your selfish mind to handle."
It was the clear haze of distress which had washed over the wizard's face that made Halo realize she'd struck a nerve… and a particularly sensitive one at that.
He swallowed down the growing lump in his throat. He'd single-handedly driven her past hatred of him. He'd been able to keep the other students at that perfect balance of despise for him as a teacher by not allowing them to know him as a person. But the one person, with the exception of his colleagues, who knew more of him than his foul disposition as Potions Master of Hogwarts had admitted to an even lower and more unacceptable emotion.
Pity.
And it scared him worse than any death threat he could ever receive.
But he had to say something. Anything.
"I won't say I understand how you feel. But know this… I would never, never ask you to face the Death Eaters. Even if you were set to die tomorrow, I wouldn't do it." He lifted her chin to make eye contact and nearly flinched when she didn't pull away. "I would never put you in harm's way."
Halo gulped as he removed his long fingers from beneath her chin. She inhaled deeply. "You never answered my question." Her voice was almost a whisper.
He was still staring directly into her eyes. He realized for the first time that they were much like his own, dark steel-gray compared to his black ones. "I was hoping you could show the world in a short time that Sirens are not to be feared. And what better way to prove a Siren's gift is innocent than with the talent of a brilliant child?"
The man had a talent for being scathing and manipulative one moment and then offering gentle admiration the next. Halo was dumbstruck, and not for the first time. He occasionally surprised her with a kind word, but covered it all with sticky sarcasm later. So she pushed her dwindling hopes deep down, storing them where they couldn't hurt her the next time the admonishments came.
"May I go to bed now?" she asked in a small voice.
He considered her for a moment, and upon noting the dark shadows under her eyes and the drooping of her eyelids, he relented. "Of course."
Halo nodded absently, then did something she never thought she'd do. As he was still standing directly in front of her, she moved forward and slowly, as not to startle him, brought her arms about his waist and rested her cheek against his chest.
Snape wasn't sure what to make of it, but as he didn't want to frighten the child, (now where had that desire come from?) he allowed her to embrace him. He just didn't know why she was doing it, and something in him spawned the urge to reciprocate. When his arms came up to hold her, he felt her tense slightly, then relax under his arms.
Neither realized just how long they'd held such close proximity, but Snape was aware of his uninterrupted focus on the girl's deep breathing and slow, regular heartbeat. At least he thought he'd been aware, until her breaths became irregular, even shaky. One of his hands, completely on its own, began to move in small circles between her shoulder blades. It wasn't until her heard a muted sniffle that his delayed astuteness comprehended that she was crying. He pulled her closer to him, though he didn't have the first clue why instinct had told him to do that.
At his firmer grasp, she pulled away from him, his arms coming open immediately to release her. She fled the room, one hand covering her mouth to stifle the sobs which threatened to shake the dungeon walls.
Snape was at a loss for words, and at even more of a loss for action. He contented himself to fix his gaze on the stack of books he'd bought her, lying on her desk, quite forgotten at her hasty departure. He certainly hadn't encouraged her to seek human comfort. Quite the opposite, actually. So after standing for a while contemplating her troubled departure, he moved on to contemplate the source of her display of affection. And was it truly affection, or just relief of tension? He had no idea whatsoever. The man was completely clueless as to the true nature of hormonal tendencies of teenage girls.
But he had an idea who might understand.
He retrieved a piece of parchment and hastily wrote a note, calling to his owl. It was time to consult the enemy.
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Twenty minutes later, Oliver Wood entered the Potions classroom as requested.
"You wanted to see me, Sir." The young man was clearly apprehensive, but not fearful as he guessed the topic of discussion was Halo. He had decided to be as forthcoming as possible. He didn't want the father of the girl he was just beginning to understand to get the wrong idea, even though any idea he thought Professor Snape to have would be unjustified.
He was in for a surprise.
"Yes, Mr. Wood. As I'm sure you are aware, I know of your relationship with… a student in my House." He mentally cursed himself for nearly calling her his daughter.
"That's right, sir." Hide nothing, he thought, except the knowledge that he's Halo's father.
"And… just how intimate… is your relationship with this person?" Snape leisurely advanced on the boy like a storm rolling into a calm harbor.
"She's my friend, Sir. Nothing more, at the moment."
"Is that so?" A black eyebrow raised and black-sleeved arms were folded as though waiting for an explanation.
"Yes, Sir. It's important to me that she not do anything she isn't ready for… she's been quite difficult to get to know." His hands had begun to sweat. Where is this going?
"She certainly is." Snape held Oliver's gaze for a long moment before continuing the conversation. "As it is my duty to protect those in my House, it is also my duty to inform you that Halo's father is a very powerful man. If you are responsible for anything happening to her, I dare say he might kill you."
Oliver shuddered at the cool malice in his teacher's eyes. "I… I understand, Sir."
"Good. I hear she gets on better with you than any other student in this school… and with that in mind, I suppose I can trust you to look after her from time to time, assuming there will be no shower-drowning incidents like the one in which you involved yourself just last night."
"That was unintentional… sufficed to say, I was disappointed by the outcome of the game."
"Yes, well it won't happen again, do I make myself clear?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Very well. You will report to me directly if you discover anything about the girl that her father or myself should know about. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Sir."
Snape nodded. "You may go now. "
"Thank you, Sir." Oliver turned on his heel and marched out of the classroom. There was no doubt where he was headed.
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"I can't believe he put you in that position!" Halo shrilled. "To think that he expects you to inform him about my powers… that's assuming he thinks I'd tell you about them in the first place. And he doesn't even know that you know he's my father. So in effect, He's keeping the agreement he made with you from me, I'll supposedly be keeping everything from you and you'll be keeping any mention of what I've told you from him. Oh, this is just great. This is just bloody terrific."
He'd found her crying in her bed, and since then she'd gone from terribly upset to bitterly amazed to being frustrated and enraged. And she still hadn't told him what had upset her in the first place. Like she really knew why, though her world was falling apart all around her.
"I'm going to die, Oliver."
"No you're not, it's just a bloody messed-up situation, that's all." He took her hand in his and gave it a friendly squeeze.
"No, I'm serious. I'm going to die. Before the end of the summer."
He stared at her for a long while. "Don't joke like that."
"I apologize if my life isn't going according to your plans."
The unbelieving stare continued, then Oliver brought his hand to his mouth to smother a terrified gasp. "Please… tell me you aren't serious." Barely a strained whisper.
Halo sniffled. "I would never lie to you…"
He turned pale. Not just a no-sun-exposure-pale, but absolutely white. "Oh Gods…" his voice broke. He fought back tears, fought back fainting. It was several minutes of heart-wrenching, suppressed sobs that sounded like asthmatic heaves before he forced himself to remain calm enough to ask for an explanation.
She gave him one. "Because he doesn't love me."
Oliver's stomach turned to ice and wrenched painfully. He held her hand in an excruciating grip, his voice shaking with dread. "Now you're joking. Why are you doing this?"
"It's true." Halo sighed. "When my real father gave me to him, he put some curse on me that would transfer to him… some kind of bonding spell. When he touched me, he was irrevocably responsible for me, whether her wanted to be or not. The spell must be completed by the responsible party… else I will die. The incomplete bond will sever my life at the end of a fourteen-year period following the spell's activation. And the worst part is… he has to love me, at least a little bit, in order for the closure spell to work."
"Bloody Hell! That effing bastard!" Oliver burst out, leaping up from his seat on the edge of her bed, his breathing harsh and furious. He forced himself to calm considerably when he saw the unreserved distress erupting upon Halo's features.
"I'm sorry, Halo… I can't take this right now…" And then he was gone, but his words hung over the room like a dark cloud.
It figures… everything I touch gets ruined. The weight of the situation pulled at her, and her bed was the most inviting sight in the world. She clutched the worn out pillow to her chest and curled up on her side. Mental imagery suggested a picture of a mentally unstable and depressed person in solitary confinement… and with the absence of mental instability, the picture was pretty accurate.
It's better this way… he won't be around to be upset when I die… it's just better this way…The words played on her lips as she drifted off to a despair-induced sleep.
And from under her bed, a middle-aged rat scurried to a small hole in the wall and disappeared.